Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - James 1:27 - 1:27
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Pure religion and undefiled (thrēskeia kathara kai amiantos). Numerous examples in papyri and inscriptions of thrēskeia for ritual and reverential worship in the Roman Empire (Moulton and Milligan’s Vocabulary; Deissmann, St. Paul, p. 251). As Hort shows, this is not a definition of religion or religious worship, but only a pertinent illustration of the right spirit of religion which leads to such acts.
Before our God and Father (para tōi theōi kai patri). By the side of (para) and so from God’s standpoint (Mar 10:27). Amiantos (compound verbal adjective, alpha privative, miainō to defile), puts in negative form (cf. Jam 1:4, Jam 1:6) the idea in kathara (pure, clean). This (hautē). Feminine demonstrative pronoun in the predicate agreeing with thrēskeia.
To visit (episkeptesthai). Epexegetic (explaining hautē) present middle infinitive of episkeptomai, common verb to go to see, to inspect, present tense for habit of going to see. See Mat 25:36, Mat 25:43 for visiting the sick.
The fatherless and widows (orphanous kai chēras). “The natural objects of charity in the community” (Ropes). Orphanos is old word for bereft of father or mother or both. In N.T. only here and Joh 14:18. Note order (orphans before widows).
Unspotted (aspilon). Old adjective (alpha privative and spilos, spot), spotless. This the more important of the two illustrations and the hardest to execute.
To keep (tērein). Present active infinitive, “to keep on keeping oneself un-specked from the world” (a world, kosmos, full of dirt and slime that bespatters the best of men).